Page 66 - ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services – Recommendations

ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services
Recommendations

Title of recommendation Accessibility of contracts to customers
Working Group Consumer Experience and Protection

Theme Contracts/Disclosures
Audience for recommendation Regulators/Providers

Regulators should require providers make customer contracts available to consumers in readily and easily acces-
sible ways, including in languages commonly spoken in the jurisdiction and via multiple means, including both
digital and print versions available at agent and customer care locations. Regulators should also encourage DFS
providers to keep contracts as short and precise as feasible, and to use simple wording that is easy for consum-
ers to understand.

Uganda has 41 living languages , and its two official languages are English and Swahili. In Nigeria, there are
15
527 living languages spoken, with 10 of the languages considered the most commonly spoken in the country.
Yet, the Consumer Experience and Protection Working Group’s review of DFS provider contracts from those
two countries (as well as 6 other African countries), found that consumer user agreements were only available
in English. Only in Tanzania did the review find a single DFS provider contract that was available in Kiswahili,
as well as English. If consumers are expected to understand and comply with contract terms, contracts should
be in commonly spoken languages in the consumer’s jurisdiction.
In addition to a population’s spoken languages, providers also need to take into consideration the varying
literacy rates amongst their user base, as well as the fact that consumers may have other obstacles to reading
or comprehending a contract, like poor vision, low levels of education, or cognitive impairment. Further, the
Working Group’s review found that some contracts were not well drafted and the meaning was unclear, even
to the lawyers tasked with reviewing them.
For this reason, certain legal frameworks already mandate that contracts be written in plain, simple, and
readily understandable language; and that providers read and explain the contents to those consumers who
are unable to read and/or who have comprehension difficulty.
For example, Malawi’s Consumer Protection Act of 2003, Sec. 26(1) provides:

Standard form contracts or agreements shall:

a) be drafted in the official language and in characters readable at single sight by any normal sighted person;
b) where the contract is entered into locally, have a written translation into the national local language and
shall be read and explained to an illiterate, blind, mute, and similarly disabled consumer in a language
he/she understands.

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